Tuesday 20 May, 10:00,
Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House
The Education and Work and Pensions committees will hold a joint evidence
session to investigate how governments, past and present,
have tried to tackle child poverty.
The session, with witnesses including former cabinet minister
and former Children's
Commissioner , comes ahead of the
Government's Child Poverty Taskforce publishing its strategy –
due in spring 2025.
The Taskforce, announced in July
2024, was instructed to produce a strategy to reduce child
poverty across the UK. It came amid criticism of the Government
for not making changes to the ‘two-child limit', where Universal
Credit and Child Tax Credit payments are limited to a maximum of
two children in most families.
Announcing details of
the Taskforce's work, the Government said in October that there
had been an increase of 700,000 children in poverty since 2010.
The Department for Work and Pensions has recently revealed that,
in the year to April 2024, the number of UK children in poverty
was at its highest level since comparative records began in
2002.
The first panel of witnesses – which also includes Naomi
Eisenstadt, former director of Sure Start and the Social
Exclusion taskforce – will be asked to assess the current levels
of child poverty in the UK and how they think attitudes and
discourse on child poverty have changed in recent years. They are
also likely to be asked about government interventions to reduce
poverty through social security policy, the National Minimum
Wage, as well as measures to support children in education such
as Pupil Premium. There may also be questions about the use of
Sure Start centres, and the previous government's rollout of
Family Hubs.
A second panel of witnesses, including experts from the Institute
for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation among others, is
also likely to be questioned on the Government's proposed changes
to health and disability benefits, and policies designed to help
adults into work. There may also be questions about the
relationship between poverty and children's mental and physical
health, and policies to improve attendance and attainment in
school.
Panel 1 witnesses from
10:00
- The CBE, Executive Chair
and Founder of the Centre for Young Lives and former Children's
Commissioner, Member of the House of Lords
- The Rt Hon. the , former Secretary of State
for Education and Employment and former Secretary of State for
Work and Pensions, Member of the House of Lords
- Naomi Eisenstadt CB, Chair at NHS Northamptonshire Integrated
Care Board, former director of Sure Start and the Social
Exclusion taskforce, non-executive director at Department of
Health and Social Care
Panel 2 witnesses from
11:00
- Tom Waters, Associate Director of Income, Work and Welfare at
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)
- Mike Brewer, Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Economist at
The Resolution Foundation
- Professor David Taylor-Robinson, Chair in Health
Inequalities, Professor of Public Health and Policy at The
University of Liverpool
- Dr Katriona O'Sullivan, Professor of Psychology, Director for
the Centre for Excellence and Inclusive Higher Education at
Maynooth University
ENDS
Background
The joint Committee will comprise members of both committees, and
the respective Chairs, (Education) and (Work and Pensions), will
take turns to act as Chair between the two panels of witnesses.
Further joint committee sessions are likely to be held following
the publication of the Child Poverty Taskforce's recommendations
to the Government.
